Heretofore in the art, practically all locking pliers/wrenches have been of the type generally comprising substantially large size or "big mouth" jaws for general duty use even though the nominal overall length of the tool may be different, say from small to large size, for example, five to ten inches. Furthermore, other more specific types of hand clamping tools embody modified jaw forms, such as C-shaped jaw members, straight jaws, curved jaws, pinch-off jaws, elongated flat platelike jaws for sheet metal work, welding clamp jaws, or movable jaw members coupled with a chain clamping means enabling a work piece, such as a pipe, to be effectively gripped.
The following United States patents are representative of the class of locking tools in the art employing various jaw members and which also generally comprise handle members including some form of toggle-actuation for locking a workpiece between a pair of jaws of a locking plier or locking wrench.
______________________________________ Number Date Name ______________________________________ 1,489,458 April 8, 1924 W. Petersen 2,201,918 May 21, 1940 W. Petersen 2,229,454 Oct. 20, 1942 H. C. Borchers 2,280,005 April 14, 1942 W. Petersen 2,341,489 Feb. 8, 1944 J. E., R. M. Tornberg 2,417,013 March 4, 1947 W. Petersen 2,563,267 Aug. 7, 1951 C. Petersen 2,590,031 Mar. 18, 1952 C. Petersen 2,641,149 June 9, 1953 C. Petersen 2,711,663 June 28, 1955 W. Petersen 3,192,804 July 6, 1965 C. Petersen, et al 3,585,704 June 22, 1971 J. A. Schroeder 3,590,669 July 6, 1971 Vincent Marasco ______________________________________
The above-identified Petersen patents are all precursers and forerunners of contemporary locking hand tools marketed for years by Petersen Manufacturing Co., Inc. of DeWitt, Nebraska 68341. A 1981 General Catalog is attached to this specification for the purposes of more particularly illustrating and providing additional descriptive material clearly disclosing the various models of Petersen's locking pliers and other locking hand tools, which incidentally and to this day are all identified by one or more "Vise-Grip" trademarks of Petersen Manufacturing Co., Inc.
In addition to the above-mentioned prior art patents, the following United States patents are examples of a class of more conventional pliers.
______________________________________ Number Date Name ______________________________________ 1,141,786 June 1, 1915 W. O. Eilert 1,442,083 Jan. 16, 1923 A. J. Meyer 1,504,401 Aug. 12, 1924 W. C. Tull, et al 2,847,889 Aug. 19, 1958 F. O. Cain ______________________________________
Illustrative of recent pliers of the conventional class which have found wide use in numerous newer industries, such as those involving electronic and computer applications are the long nose, needle nose, curved needle nose and other specialty pliers as shown and described on pages 105 and 110 of a Proto Tool Catalog and page 12 of a Mathias Klein Tool Catalog, copies of which are available at the Patent and Trademark Office, but which are nevertheless also attached to this specification for the attention of the Patent and Trademark Office in order to facilitate its work in searching for prior art relevant to the present invention.
The only known prior art long nose locking plier is U.S. Pat. No. 3,600,986, granted to Earl M. Baldwin, Jr. on Aug. 24, 1971 (copy also enclosed with this application). This locking hand tool is also known by the trademark "Lever Wrench", a registered trademark of Leverage Tools, Inc. of Glenvil, Nebraska, 68941. This prior art Leverage company tool (Model #L-8) is a self-adjusting long nose toggle plier which is difficult to operate and even more difficult to adjust to a desired pressure. Moreover, the Lever Wrench is clumsy and awkward to use as a locking plier because upon pushing its movable lever handle outward to unlock the tool, the jaws do not at once begin to move apart, it being necessary to continue moving the lever handle outward through a considerable arc before the jaws actually begin to move apart, with the result that there is a great amount of lost motion and one's hand must be open much too far to move the jaws apart. Another disadvantage of the Lever Wrench tool is that it is case hardened, that is, the core is soft and only a thin outer skin or shell is hardened. Typical hardness readings of the jaw surfaces of such a long nose locking plier are about 58-60 Rockwell C scale with the skin or shell measuring about 0.005 inch at maximum. The core readings range from about 28-30 Rockwell C scale. Although the outer skin or shell exhibits suitable hardness for a long nose locking plier, the use of inherently lower grade steels causes the jaws, when under considerable pressure, in tightly gripping a workpiece, to easily deflect outwardly and bend excessively and to set permanently without spring back, thereby precluding restoration of the jaws to their original unstressed shape and condition even if such action is within elastic limits of the steels employed.
In addition to the above known long nose locking plier, applicant has filed in many foreign countries for equivalent design protection based on my U.S. Ser. No. 943,180 and a number of the counterpart Industrial Design applications have since been issued and registered as more particularly identified in my declaration accompanying this utility patent application.
One of the main disadvantages of the above-noted locking tools is that they are generally designed for various applications, and their configurations and structural elements, particularly the special shaped jaws are too blunt, short, or stubby to reach small or tight places and are generally not suitable or useful in tight quarters and for many delicate jobs. With my unique and novel long nose locking plier, any desired amount of pressure can be applied to hold small and fragile objects, such as jewelry, electronic components, tiny springs, cotter pins, etc., all with a fine fingertip like control.